Thump, thump.

I’m sitting here on a Friday night by myself (Fred’s working) watching a movie when I hear Georgia moan. I hear her shift in her crib and go back to sleep. I feel drunk on love. These are the moments when I think  my heart might explode out of my chest. That is all.

Georgia’s Mom

Toast.

The countdown has begun. I didn’t want it to happen this early but given January flew by so fast, I know the last 11 weeks of maternity leave will do the same. I have to say, I’m not dreading going back to work. (Wow – don’t be so positive, you say!) But really, it was a possibility. And given I don’t have a choice (seriously, who does these days!), I’m happy that it is not totally taking my breath away. I like my job, I love the people I work with, and sometimes I do wish I had more adult interaction. Fred would concur given I attack him with endless stream of consciousness discussion the minute he comes in the door. Ok, more like diatribe than discussion but you get the point.

Anyways, I’m not quite ready yet and happy I have 11 weeks left. I LOVE being home with Georgia. It’s hard to pick a favourite part…perhaps when she wakes up from her nap and is standing in her sleepsack (sleeping back with armholes) all smiles. Or maybe it’s when she’s standing next to her toy box and realizes that she’s not in fact holding on to the toybox. Or maybe it’s when she tries a new food for the first time…like toast.

We’ve been struggling a little with Georgia and food. It’s not that she won’t try new things..she’ll try just about anything BUT she eats maybe three spoonfuls, has no desire to feed herself, and just really isn’t interesting it food. What, you say? Is she truly your child? I know, I know. So, we’ve been experimenting with eating before the bottle, eating an hour after the bottle, warm, cold, on my head…etc, etc. But I decided to try some plain toast. Friends of mine had tried it so we thought we’d give it a go. Not only did she pick it up, she put it in her mouth (gasp!), LEFT it in there, CHEWED it, and SWALLOWED!! Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah…

Here is her first experience with toast:

Hmm, interesting...

Chewing

LOVE it!

We still struggle with eating but she’s doing much better. Cooked squash, toast, and Cheerio’s have all been helpful at teaching her how to feed herself. I’m still in charge of getting veggies, fruit, and meat into her!

Oh, and although she doesn’t eat like her father, her hair confirms she’s his child:

WUH?

We’re heading to a playdate tomorrow, a housewarming party on Saturday and conducting many interviews with potential families for the daycare. Oh! And our website is up: www.brightbeginningschildcare.ca. Check it out!

Georgia’s Mom

Cause and Effect.

A short update on the daycare – we’re moving at lightening speed these days and after 25 resumes, 12 interviews, and several references, we have our caregiver! This is a HUGE weight lifted off of our shoulders. I wasn’t really sure we’d find someone looking to run a home daycare in someone ELSE’s house. Luckily, this wonderful woman does. Before giving you my rant of her qualities, take a look at what she sent me this evening explaining her caregiving philosophy. I had asked her to write something that I could include in a package to potential families. Here is an excerpt:

“Being a Buddhist, I believe in “cause and effect”- everything I do will affect something. I cannot know what sorts of effects will happen; I cannot know who will receive them; I cannot know when they will happen. Only one thing is for certain: they will be good effects because I have made good causes.

I have been a child caregiver for the past six years, and prior to that taught Mandarin for the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board’s International Languages programme for five years. I really appreciate that children bring so much happiness, joy, and wisdom to my life, and quite honestly, I really do think I got more than I gave. It is very lucky for me that I could work with the hopes and future of everyone.

There is an old Chinese saying: “The most trustworthy person in the world is one to whom you would feel safe giving your child to.” I appreciate your trust, and feel special that they are willing to leave the children in my care. I believe that nothing is a co-incidence, and will treasure this relationship fully.”

Nuff said. Really though…what more do you want than someone who’s goal during the day is to create good ’causes’ in hopes of creating good ‘effects’. She is loving, kind, truthful, and conscientious. Although her English is fairly strong in the statement above, she has broken spoken English. In fact, children in her care learn to speak Mandarin fluently! What you say? Mandarin? Yes! While French may seem like the more practical second language, I am thrilled that Georgia will get the chance to learn a new language and possibly a new culture.

Now we’re on to advertising. Of course I have to wait until I have just the right logo and just the right brochure…as well as a website…(my New Year’s resolution to stop making mountains out of mole hills ebbs and flows. ). Oh – and the name. Bright Beginnings Childcare. I’ll post the final logo when it’s done!

As for Georgia, sweet as ever. A few new things she’s doing:

- looking behind her to see if I’m watching and then leaping to a place I don’t let her go (like the fireplace)

- shaking her head furiously when I say “no,no,no,no,no”

- Laughing hysterically when I try to eat her fingers in a gobble, gobble monster voice (all you parents know exactly what I’m talking about)

- Patting any flat surface as I say “pat,pat,pat,pat”

- Waving. Well, I think she’s waving. Although she kind of does it all the time, regardless of whether or not someone is coming or going. Does that count?

Here is a pic of us swimming recently with some of my volleyball team.

Swimming, swimming in the swimming pool...

We’re hoping the weather warms up a little. With a minus 35 degrees today, we barely made it over to Baby Ben’s house for some lunch! Thanks for sharing your Mum Mum Ben! So nice of you…

Georgia’s Mom

So lucky.

I was checking out our blog stats the other day; the really detailed stats. I’d not checked these before. I simply checked to see how many visits we had per day. Not surprisingly, the highest number of visits we’ve had in the history of the blog was the day of Georgia’s surgery. There were 638 visits that day. Amazing. Since then we get anywhere from 10-40 visits a day; a little more on post days. Thank you all for following our journey so far!

Ok – back to the story, so, one of the stats that I’d not yet seen before was the ‘referrer stat’ which basically tells you when someone arrived at your site by clicking a link on someone else’s site. I didn’t really give this much thought before because it’s not like I place this blog elsewhere. However, there was a link from www.bradandkellie.blogspot.com suggesting someone had gotten to our site through this one. I took a look at it and it’s the parents of another CDH baby! They’ve been following Georgia’s progress and have posted a link to our site from theirs! Not only are they following Georgia’s blog, they have several other CDH baby blogs listed.

This is where we get to the ’so lucky’ part. I spent some time reading about Brad and Kellie’s son Carter along with several other stories of CDH babies and realized just how lucky we are. Of course, many of us CDH parents are just lucky to have our children alive today..and we are so very thankful for that…but what these websites showed me is just how fortunate we are to have a very normal life now. Many of these babies spend months in the NICU, including Carter. Here is a brief synopsis of his entry into this world:

• 43 days before he snuggled into his parents’ arms,
• 115 days in the NICU,
• 4 surgeries before he was 2 mths old (original plus 3 re-herniations)
• fed through a tube for his first year of life

I then fell upon Wyatt’s site and was amazed at the life he leads with help from so many people, including a daytime and nighttime nurse. He is on oxygen full time and is still fed through a tube at 2 1/2 years old. Here is a link to a very interesting post highlighting their daily routine. http://wyattjameskoger.blogspot.com/2010/01/raising-cdh-awareness-and-thankful-for.html

If you have a minute, please take the time to read through it and see just how lucky we are and how many babies (and parents!) still need our strength, thoughts, and prayers.

CDH actually occurs as often as Spina Bifida and Cystic Fibrosis, yet so few people know about it and so little money goes to finding a cause or a cure. We hope that in some way, this blog has helped to raise awareness in our extended circle of family and friends. Thanks again for your support. You really matter to us.

Georgia’s grateful Mom

Movers and Shakers.

We’ve been thinking more and more about Georgia’s care when I go back to work. It’s still three months away but we, I mean “I”, am getting a little more anxious about leaving Georgia with someone else. I’m sure that’s totally normal, but we’re going to try something a little different. We’ve decided to open a daycare in our basement. No one can ever accuse us of being boring!

As some of you know, we have tenants in the basement at the moment. It was such a hard decision because they are truly some of the nicest people we’ve ever met…and most definitely the best possible tenants ever. So, should the daycare not work, we will be kicking ourselves royally for letting this couple go.

We will be renovating and adding cribs, small tables and chairs, toys, a reading area with bean bag chairs for the kids, crafts, paint, etc. We’re actually really excited at the prospect of setting up the space. However, we have to find the right caregiver first. This has been a difficult task to date but we’ve got a few more interviews this week and hope to solidify someone in the next week or two. That should give us enough time to advertise and fill the spots by April, which is when it will open. This way, we won’t have to rush Georgia out in the morning or race back every evening. We won’t have to pack her up in the car when she’s barely finished her cereal and she’ll get to be in a space that we know is safe, clean and fun! It’s still going to be hard leaving her but it might not be quite so hard knowing she’s home. We’ll keep you posted on the progress!

As for Georgia, she’s also a mover and a shaker. She’s pulling herself to standing on everything now. She’s also stood on her own, not holding anything for several seconds! She may be an early walker! It took her quite a while to go from all fours to actually crawling but she’s loving standing and walking with help! We’ll see. She’s eating well but doesn’t seem interested in finger foods. I finally bought some Baby Mum Mums (little baby crackers) and she really likes them. She eats the whole thing by herself. Ok, so it’s not a carrot or a piece of pear. BUT she’s eating it by herself.

Here are a few recent pics of our cutie pettuti!

Beep Beep!

Peek-a-boo!

Snuggling with daddy

So pretty....

This week we’re busy with caregiver interviews, swimming, and a couple of playdates.

Should be fun!

Georgia’s Mom

Genetics – take 2.

Some of you may remember way back when…somewhere around day 3 of G’s life, the physicians from the Genetics department came by for a visit to determine if Georgia’s CDH was an isolated case or one that has some genetic component to it. After a thorough review of my family history, and a marginally thorough review of Fred’s (boys really don’t do detail, do they?), they determined that it was not likely a genetic issue with Georgia. Given we had other issues to deal with at the time, they recommended that we come back at a later time to review Georgia’s development.

That later time was today. We made the short commute to CHEO and spent the better part of 15 minutes getting to the actual appointment because every doctor, nurse, and patient had to coo at smiley G. And she, of course, flirted with the male resident that conducted the first part of the appointment…which no doubt got her extra points.

The assessment went very well. Another case of “wow – it’s nice to see a happy, healthy, and appropriately developed 8 month old”. They so rarely see a baby that is thriving so well after such a bumpy entrance into this world. They confirmed that they believe her diaphragmatic hernia was an isolated case. As a result, the probability of recurrence in future pregnancies is only 1-2%! Yay! That’s great news for the 10 children to come.

Another discharge for Georgia! Cardiology – check, Surgery – check, Genetics – check. Only Audiology and Neonatal follow-up left. In addition to the discharge, the geneticist would like to see me when and if I become pregnant again. She would like to follow me as early as 8 weeks into the pregnancy. She will order detailed ultrasounds from the beginning to ensure we catch anything that may or may not be related to Georgia’s hernia. Good news again.

We hope everyone is staying warm in this cold January weather!
Georgia’s Mom

Happy New Year!

Although 2009 brought one of the greatest gifts I will likely ever receive in my life, I can’t say I’m not happy it’s over. Seriously. At 11:59pm (ok – who’s kidding who, I was in bed at 11:15pm…pretending it was 11:59pm), I said good riddance to 2009. It was a tough year full of worry, stress, childbirth, sleep deprivation, renovations and lots and lots of crying. Again, I repeat – the GREATEST gift of my life. But it didn’t come without some heartache. So, here I am dancing in my living room with Georgia pulling at my pant leg giggling, drooling, and looking soooo adorable. 2010 is already a fantastic year, with only 2 glorious days down and 363 to go.

Georgia is just so much fun to be around. She flirts with boys, gives open mouth kisses, squeals at pictures of other babies (let alone other ‘actual’ babies), and CRAWLS. Yes – crawls! It’s official – she’s mobile. We have moved into a very dangerous zone where anything within two feet of the ground is fair game. But it’s adorable to watch. In fact, at dinner tonight, after spending a lovely day with Georgia, I suggested to Fred that I want to have 10 children to which he responded “and how many husbands”. Don’t worry – he’ll come around.

I hope all of you rang in the New Year just as you wanted to – whether that was dancing on a table with a lampshade on your head in front of 100 of your closest friends or lying on the couch in your reindeer pyjamas sipping tea and watching Ryan Seacrest interview 1 million lunatics who chose to stand for hours in the cold downtown NY city. And if you’re into resolutions…I’ll add a few of mine. I don’t usually make resolutions. Any of you who know me remotely well know that I am basically on a constant wheel of self improvement so one day does not really differ from the next. Notice I said “wheel”, round and never starting or ending…I’m not saying I’m successful at this quest – just consistent. Nonetheless, this year, I will stop making mountains out of molehills (it only happens once or twice a year…I mean..day) and to lose more than a few lbs. Since I was released from my breastfeeding diet about 3 months ago I’ve gained 14lbs. Yup – 14. Good times. Not that I’m really bothered by it. I just don’t have the energy or desire to go out and buy a whole new wardrobe that actually fits. Strap on the running shoes. Ottawa Half Marathon is in order (May 2010).

I seem to have gone on a little here. Point is – Happy New Year! I hope yours will be as happy and filled with drool as mine!

Georgia’s Mom

Georgia’s 1st Christmas

What an amazing week we’ve had! Georgia has taken it all in stride…the parties, the crowds, the presents, the snow, etc…she has had a great time. She was a little fussy on Christmas morning but I think it’s because she’s used to a quiet time with mommy in the morning. Instead, she awoke to about 10 people (2 of whom were jacked..possibly my younger siblings), lots of presents, and Diana Krall belting out “Have yourself a merry little Christmas”. She wasn’t all that interested in opening presents but enjoyed eating the tissue paper. (Part of a healthy diet, no?)

Here are a few pics from Christmas morning. Note, I’m not entire sure what is possessing me to post the pic of F, G and I on Christmas morning. Perhaps the sight of us is what made her fussy…

Opening her first Christmas gift

Playing with Uncle Joey

Helping Poppy Sadler play Jingle Bells

We enjoyed lots of time with the Sadler family, including Great Nan Sadler.

With Great Nan Sadler and Great Aunt Judy

And we had  wonderful Boxing Day with the Melanson clan. Here is a pic of four generations (with Great Grammy) and one of all the Melanson grandkids.

Four generations

The Melanson grandkids + Georgia

We are sad to leave but excited to return home and back to our normal routine. We’ve had a wonderful stay at Nana and Poppy’s. Luckily, it snowed today so they were able to take Georgia out for a ride in her tobbogan! She laughed and kicked her little legs the whole time.

Winter Wonderland

We fly out tomorrow morning and look forward to seeing Grandma Peggy, who has returned from Costa Rica, and Aunt Marjorie, who will be visiting us this weekend. Have a safe trip home everyone!

Happy New Year!

Georgia’s Mom

Ho.Ho.Ho.

I can’t believe it’s Christmas Eve! It seems like December just flew by…and it seems like we just arrived in Moncton yesterday! The festivities are well underway now and Georgia seems to be taking it all in stride. She’s really changed a lot in the last couple of weeks. I’ve heard that there can be significant growth around 8 months and we’re seeing it. She’s able to communicate her needs and wants a lot better. She now reaches up when she wants to be picked up. (It doesn’t even matter if it’s the most inconvenient time…it is so cute that it melts your heart!) She seems to be eating her solids a little better; although, she still won’t eat anything I make her. It can be a supremely mashed up banana with a little water and she will gag. I’m hoping this will get better so she can start enjoying pureed versions of our meals. She’s still not crawling but is able to get around a little more by rolling, sitting up, scooching her bum over or just reaching as far as she can. She’s so anxious to get moving!

As for holiday activities, we took Georgia to see Santa last week! I wasn’t sure how she’d do as she just started to make strange and to cling to mommy every minute of the day. She was a trooper! It took her about 2 minutes to realize that she didn’t want to be with the fat man in a red suit with a white beard; just long enough to take her picture. Here she is:

Georgia before she realized she wasn't sitting with mommy

We’ve also had a chance to take her out in a tobbogan, introduce her to the Christmas tree, and let her help with the wrapping (clearly a good decision). Here are a few photos from those events:

Waiting for mom

Woohoo!

I'm very helpful!

With all of this activity, Georgia is sleeping very well. She cries at every nap time but it’s only because she’s having so much fun with all of these people that she really doesn’t want to go to bed. It lasts anywhere from 10 seconds to 3 minutes. Then she’s out for about an hour or two in the morning and again in the afternoon. She’s sleeping 7pm to 6:30am each night which is fantastic. I’m just now starting to get used to the early wakeup.

That’s it for now! Have a wonderful Christmas everyone!

Georgia’s Mom

Bath time.

For those of you who have been following the blog since the beginning, you may remember a blog post of the same name…luckily, this one will be without the many, many references to poop. Georgia no longer poops in the bath but she still likes it just as much as she did back then! In fact, I have to refrain from taking her in the bathroom throughout the day because she thinks she’s going to have a bath and loses her mind. She again, pumps her legs (will she be a runner?), tenses her neck and face muscles and hyperventilates.

Here we are getting undressed at bath time..by ‘we’, I mean ‘Georgia’, (those pictures will NEVER appear on the blog!)

Yes! Bath time...

Before I put her in the tub, I let her stand at the side looking in at the water. She hangs on tight and blows quick breaths out of her mouth…

Let me at it!

And now she’s getting impatient with all the photos…”just get me in there guys!”

Enough already!

Finally, here she is in her tub…

Love it.

In other news, Georgia had her 6 month shots yesterday. We delayed them a bit while she had her two H1N1 shots. I felt like a shot a week for an entire month was a little much to endure and our doctor said it wasn’t a big deal to prolong the 6 month ones so we did. She was great at the dr’s office, as usual, and slightly irritable for the last two days…as usual. Luckily, it hasn’t affected her sleep. Still 2 solid naps a day (1.5 hrs – 3 hrs each) and about 12 hours at night. We are considering ourselves very lucky as we know, just like the tough stuff “this too shall pass”. Nothing stays the same, this much we know!

We’re all packed up and ready for our trip to Moncton. We fly out at 7:35am tomorrow and we can’t wait! Most of the family have not seen Georgia since September and wow, has she changed! They will see such a difference. We’ve got bottle warmers and mini nail clippers and plastic spoons and books with stuffed ducks on them…and…and…and..it never ends! Regardless, we’re ready. See you soon Nana and Poppy, Nan, Grammy and Mel, Uncle Jeff and Uncle Joey!

Georgia’s Mom